


Cliffhangers

by alekth



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Book: Swords and Shields - Varric Tethras, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 23:21:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12714888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alekth/pseuds/alekth





	Cliffhangers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunspot (unavoidedcrisis)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unavoidedcrisis/gifts).



“You! I told you to stop spying!”

The embarrassingly dreamy sigh that had accompanied the last sentence of the text turned into an irritated snarl as Cassandra snapped the book shut with enough force to hear the bedsprings underneath her creak. Cole barely moved from where he was crouching on the floor, a slight tilt to his head, and even that easily missed if it weren’t for the wide-brimmed hat that swayed with the movement. His mouth remained slightly open, his eyes fixed on Cassandra in expectation.

“Why does it always end in the same place?”

“It’s a cliffhanger,” Cassandra gritted her teeth, equally annoyed at the spirit and at the cliffhanger itself.

“But they were on a hill!”

“It just ends! Abruptly!” She sighed as she put the book aside, and then Cole’s words registered in full. “What do you mean, ‘always’?”

“You’ve read this one three times,” Cole nodded, matter-of-factly, then leaned forward, closer to the edge of the bed. “You read it out loud to me.”

“How…” Cassandra felt heat rise up her face, a mixture of dread, rage and not a little embarrassment the cause of it. So much for Seekers’ immunity to mind control. “Cole, you promised that you wouldn’t make any of the core Inquisition members forget about you being there.”

Cole’s gaze fell to the floor, then went back to meet her eyes, then two bony hands grabbed the brim of the hat and pulled it over his face.

“Cole! Don’t you dare make me forget!”

“You were angry last time, too,” the reply came out muffled and perfectly repentant. “Nobody can know.”

One day she would put a dummy in her room. A Solas-shaped dummy, or, better still, a Varric-shaped one. Perhaps even the Inquisitor’s likeness. The spirit sneaked wherever he pleased, doing at least as much property damage as Sera did with her pranks, and nobody said a thing.

Cassandra caught herself just in time to notice her anger turning into resignation and shifting from Cole onto others. By the time she focused again the spot on the floor was empty and she barely caught Cole at the now open door to her quarters. With a frantic thought at the last possible moment she held back the Fade, the Veil’s vibration quieting and freezing around her. She didn’t know what she had expected, perhaps for Cole to vanish entirely. Instead she caught the draft coming in, the creaking of the door and a pained gasp as Cole staggered.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“Why did you do it over and over again?”

Her grip relaxed, the resignation she had been fighting creeping in nonetheless.

“I don’t know, I was just here. I don’t like the captain either!”

With that the room went quiet again, the air still and the door closed.

“Don’t make me forget,” Cassandra spoke to no-one.

* * *

The next time she got caught going over the forsaken cliffhanger, it was by someone with regrettably better grasp on the situation. Cassandra lost her patience with the mage often enough, but she never quite looked to find for what would give her the advantage in an argument with him. She didn’t expect Trevelyan to return the favor.

“The _latest_ chapter, meaning… you’ve read them all?” Trevelyan smirked, but he seemed in a decidedly non-malicious good mood. Dorian at his side, however, scoffed dismissively.

“I couldn’t finish the last one you lent me. I actually feel dumber for having tried.”

It surprised her when Trevelyan gave him a somewhat pleading look and sent him back to the keep with the promise he’d follow soon after.

“Sorry about Dorian,” Trevelyan said when he was about to leave, not before having fully inquisited her as to the nature and author of the book. Well, the Tevinter usually had something abrasive to say to just about anyone and Trevelyan probably had endured his fair share.

Cole peeked from the stairs to the ramparts, a guilty look on his face.

“The Inquisitor knew,” Cassandra glared. “What happened to ‘nobody can know’?”

Perhaps it was Dorian’s doing. After all, he had made the main library his domain, always there to offer a disparaging remark about the South’s reading habits.

“I asked him about love triangles,” the spirit whispered, owning up. “The Iron Bull said I was too young for an explanation.”

“I suspect Bull’s explanation would have been more about a pile rather than a triangle,” Cassandra noted dryly and wondered whether Cole’s abode near the Qunari’s room was an appropriate place to live in.

“I asked Varric what was going to happen next. They were still on the hill and then he made the hill disappear.”

They sulked together over a cliffhanger that was likely going to remain one forever. There was so much more happening in the world.

* * *

The battle at Adamant came and went, and Cole all but disappeared. Cassandra saw him together with Solas or Trevelyan from time to time, but other than the two the spirit boy kept away from the countless mages at Skyhold. Even his visits to the infirmary had stopped. Cassandra was busy writing and reading actual military reports, and when preparations for the battle at the Arbor Wilds started, she barely had time for anything else. _Swords & Shields_ lay abandoned under her bed and even the jokes about it from the rest of the Inquisition Inner Circle had been laid aside.

“A peace offering: the next chapter of _Swords & Shields_. I hear you’re a fan.”

The expression on Varric’s face was smug, not far from the Inquisitor’s own barely contained grin.

“I was hoping you’d be happy about it,” Trevelyan wheezed out, then positively giggled.

Sometimes Cassandra had to do her best to remind herself that this was the man who had tried to save Justinia’s life. Sometimes it wasn’t enough. And sometimes she could endure being reminded about manners if it meant she would be the first to read the next chapter of _Swords & Shields_.

“Thank you.”

* * *

_”To be continued…”_

Cassandra closed the book, pressed it to her chest and rocked back and forth on the bed, growling.

“Aren’t you glad about the knight-captain?”

Cole’s voice broke her fantasy of utmost torture, the spirit once again sitting on the floor, staring at her. There was something different about him, the voice gentler and the tone, if at all possible, less comprehending.

“It is another cliffhanger!” Cassandra yelled. “This is how the damn dwarf makes all his money, by putting people in danger and making us beg for answers!”

They were going to be leaving for the Arbor Wilds in a day. If she died in battle, she would be happy to have read the story, as far as it went. If she lived… she would have to re-read the same text over and over again, knowing all there was to know about it, and wait, and wait…

“I could make you forget,” Cole hesitantly offered. “You could read it for the first time over and over again.”

“Does it look like I want to experience _this_ over and over again?” Cassandra grumbled, then drew up the covers and extinguished the candle at the bedside. “Go away, Cole.”

“I could make you forget right before the moment you got angry at Varric,” Cole hopefully supplemented.

“Stop bargaining with mortals, Cole. Someone is going to take this the wrong way.”

“I just want to help.”

“I will call for you when I’m questioning Varric next time. If the world doesn’t end and he doesn’t write more, I will stab all his books!”

She gave one last growl into her pillow as she heard Cole leave through the door.


End file.
